This hallway where I found you
by ElizabethSH
Summary: OS - CASKETT ::: Kill Shot promo based. Beckett is having an emotional breakdown while Castle tries to get to her.


**Writer's Note**: _I have no Beta, and English isn't my mother tongue; sorry for the silly mistakes. As for the story, well this popped out of my mind this afternoon after watching the promotional teaser for episode 4x09 Kill Shot (airing Nov 21st, 2011). Thank you for leaving feedback, good or bad = **Always** appreciated._

* * *

><p>"Beckett? KATE?"<p>

She heard him screaming through the locked door.

"Kate, open up! KATE?"

She couldn't move. Her body was in complete emotional strike, shaking, almost convulsing from the fear. She couldn't think. It was too loud. Too loud!

"Kate, open up, please. Let me in."

The pounding was too loud. She felt trapped.

"Let me in."

Or was it her heart that was pacing through each and every veins and arteries of her body.

Her sight blurred as her knees weakened and drove her slowly to the ground. She couldn't take it anymore. Too much ... guilt, fear. Kate Beckett was sitting in this hallway completely paralysed.

There was the cramps in her stomach, the dizziness, the chills escalading her spine, the small dark spot invading her vision; she felt as if she was going to throw up. She gasped for air trying to prevent this from happening, but it seemed like nothing was coming in. She was suffocating. She felt feverish. At one point, she came to think she was going to die in this hallway.

"KATE? Talk to me, are you in there?"

Tears came to her as she closed her eyes. The visions were flashing behind her eyes and she couldn't waved them off.

"_This is where I stand" _Repeated Montgomery's voice in her head. _"You're the best I've ever trained"_ Her head shook 'no' in response. She covered her ears, trying to stop the noise in vain.

"_NO_!" She screamed. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" Her knees came to her and she squeezed them seeking for comfort but she was still all shaken up. She hold on to them harder, rocking herself back and forth in silence.

She remembered to focus on her breathing; she had to take deep breaths. She took one, two, but at the third, she sobbed once more.

She could still hear the sound of broken glass on the floor at the diner where she had meet with Detective John Raglan the year before, the sound of the crowd screaming in shock has she couldn't. And again, the street crowd screaming after this morning's shooting. She remembered the fear choking her to the throat and crushing her heart with an invisible hand. She imagined Death's fingers – almost gently – ripping off her few months old stitches on her heart muscle.

Mechanically, her fingers touched her scar through her clothes as she remembered which only bring back more tears to her eyes and memories to her troubled mind. "_Stay with me, please don't leave me" _Begged Castle in her head, "_I love you, Kate_". Her heart pinched. She let herself fall to the ground. She brought her hand to her face, clenching her nails into her forehead skin in punishment.

"_You woke the dragon. This is so much bigger than you realize_" joined McCalister. The funeral, the terror in everyone's eyes, the sight of Castle again. Castle faces quickly morphed into Lockwood's; "_You got that ass backward sweetheart, you can't hide from him_".

Tears continued down her face, merging in previous tracks.

She startled at Castle pounding again.

"Kate, I know you'd rather be alone, but I'm not leaving. Let me help you. Open the door"

He seemed from a distance, out of reach. She was barely hearing his words. Somehow she didn't want him there, she didn't want to talk. All she wanted was to feel safe again and quit that paranoiac state of mind. She almost wanted to die. She just wanted all of this to stop, nothing more. Thinking that, she felt weak and disgusted herself for it.

"_I figured sooner or later – when you were ready – you'd want to take another run at it". _She shook negatively again. Montgomery's voice was the most painful to hear, because it wasn't until his death that things started spinning out of control. She had lost it from there. The fear had begun that night and had never left... ever.

She heard a door opening at that moment. She found the strength in the adrenaline rush to crawl away from her current position. She spotted the bathroom and dragged herself toward it while she was still breathing heavy from the crying.

"KATE? Kate where are you?"

His steps were getting closer and then stopped abruptly. She didn't have to look to know he had found her and was looking down at her. She quit fighting and fell to the ground in tears. She had lost.

"God, Kate, you okay?" He placed a hand to her back trying to sooth her gently. "What happened?"

She didn't dare showing her face to him. She didn't dare talking either. She just kept crying.

He was lost as well; it was actually one of those – rare and precious – times where she was emotionally naked in front of him. Every time he feared that she would close herself up in a snap like an oyster at the first wrong sentence or move. The touch of her body trembling reminded him of how fragile she was at the moment.

"It's over, he said, you're safe now" He put one knee to the ground and move his hand up her head.

The sobbing paused. Her hand came to meet his to reject it. He searched for her gaze in confusion.

Putting her two hands on the ground, she pulled herself slowly back in a semi-sitting position.

Out of blue, she just open arms and pulled him into a hug. Quickly, his hands naturally moved to her back. Holding her like it was the last person he would ever hold. He closed his eyes as she sobbed again on his shoulder.

"It's going to be alright, you're safe now" He repeated while she squeezed him harder.

"Cas-tle" She whispered between two sobs. "I can't do this, I feel like I ... I can't –."

"No, no, no, _shhhh_, we don't have to worry about this now. _Shhhh._" He squeezed her too.

More crying.

"I'm just glad, I found you." He added.

"Thank you" She said calmly after a minute.

"That's what partners are ..."

"Cut the crap" She cut after a snif. "Just say it ... this one time."

"Say what?"

She tugged his hair a bit. Closing her eyes as she silently prayed to hear the word from him.

"Always" He whispered to her ear. "I will _always_ be there for you."

And there she cried again against his neck.

Her body started to shake again. "I am so scared" She admitted.

"I know, I know, we're going to get you out of here, we are gonna fight this." And she wanted to believe just that. It was then that she told herself; _No, I am glad, I found _**you**.


End file.
